Posts Tagged ‘suckling pig’

Jen and I had been to the Royal Selangor Turf Club in KL a couple of times before but as I’d never been able to get a reply to my inquiries about going in a posh bit we had always just been in the non-air-conditioned and noisy sections.

This time though I got an almost immediate reply to my email and we were able to book two places in a special lounge for 170 ringgits a head including lunch and afternoon tea. We stayed over in KL the night before in the Bukit Bintang part of town and had half a suckling pig to eat. Half a pig between two seems a lot, but they are slaughtered at only two weeks old so it worked out fine. Fine for us anyway, less so for the pig.

Next day we took a cab to the track, got dropped off at the regular entrance and then wandered up to the VIP bit. It looked as if a wedding party were also in attendance but fortunately they were doing their celebrating in a different lounge to us.

We collected our badges and a race card from the front desk and took a couple of escalators to high in the stand. We were shepherded into our lounge and seated at a table for eight that had a couple of fellas opposite us.

I’d have much preferred a table for two. It’s no reflection on our table companions who were friendly enough, it’s just I’m quite anti-social and don’t have any interest in small talk with people I don’t know. Or any size talk really.

The lunch was good. It had a few prawns and some fish in it. Probably some other stuff too but I wasn’t paying attention. We got a glass of wine and then a refill. That was the lot though and when I asked for more they claimed to have run out. The only other option was Carlsberg which I’m starting to conclude is probably The Worst Lager in the World and so it was a relatively low-alcohol afternoon.

The betting was hectic in that as well as the live racing beyond the window we also had Macau and a couple of Australian tracks on the telly. I was able to bet with my phone for the Australian races which made things a little easier, but a punt on the live stuff and the Macau racing required frequent trips to the tote lady sat by the door.

Afternoon tea wasn’t as good as lunch and with a lack of wine and the air-conditioning on the warm side we’d had enough by about four o’clock. Just the two winners all afternoon meant that we failed to claw back any of the admission charge and instead put us slightly further out of pocket on the day.